


A Stumble is Not a Fall

by rememberwhenyoutried



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Unfinished
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:07:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rememberwhenyoutried/pseuds/rememberwhenyoutried
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven of Nine gets hurt and is rather grumpy about it.</p><p>Unfinished and will probably remain so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Stumble is Not a Fall

**Author's Note:**

> This is an unfinished and probably never-to-be finished fic, my first after years of writer's block. I was full of enthusiasm, but then Homestuck. The beginning in particular is rather bare: I needed a reason for the ship to be damaged and for Seven to be injured.
> 
> It's set in a vaguely Year of Hell-ish AU where the ship's supply maintenance situation is rather more strained than in canon.

They had first appeared two days ago, decloaking just ten kilometres out and beginning an attack run immediately. Their weaponry was primitive and, for each individual pod, ineffective, but they came dozens at a time and when it became clear that merely firing on Voyager had little effect had started hurling themselves directly at the ship’s shields.

The pods appeared to be unmanned and controlled by crude programs that initially were easily outwitted and outgunned, but appeared to transmit data in all directions during combat such that the next wave used different tactics. Whether the network constituted a sort of distributed artificial intelligence had been an interesting question that rapidly became irrelevant when the attacks stepped up in frequency and ferocity.

One hundred forty four weapon pods bore down on Voyager, strobing the ship with weapons fire and transmitting garbled data which was likely intended to block transmissions from lesser ships but merely gave Harry Kim, monitoring the signals for any sign of intelligence and thus anything that could be reasoned with, a headache that he had complained about for the last twenty four hours.

Seven glanced over. Harry Kim was slumped over his station, bleeding from what appeared to be a serious head wound.

“Has the Doctor been summoned?” she asked.

“Yes!” Janeway said. “He’s on his way. Now, please, be quiet and fly the ship!”

“I am perfectly capable of performing my duties and speaking with you at the same--”

“I’m aware of that, Seven, but I’m not.” Janeway completed a firing sequence and Voyager spat fire from three phaser banks. Twenty eight pods destroyed. “Not today, anyway.”

Seven nodded and turned back to her console in time for the rightmost set of controls to explode, showering her with sparks.

“Seven! Are you alright?”

“I am unharmed,” she said. “Please concentrate on your duties.”

Seven took the ship on a course designed to tempt the pods into abandoning their weapons fire and attempt to collide with the shields. Voyager corkscrewed through a cloud of machinery, debris and weapon energy, stabbing out with its phasers and shuddering as pods scraped and burned away at the shields.

“Aft shields down to three percent! Phaser banks exhausted!” Janeway yelled. “There’s no power left to transfer to-- anything! Bring us about; I’m going to detonate a torpedo in the middle of the cluster and with any luck it’ll take care of the rest of them.”

Seven executed the tightest turn she thought Voyager could handle. The sound of bulkheads groaning and a sick feeling in her stomach told her she had very nearly overestimated the strength remaining in the structural integrity field. She saw Janeway preparing the torpedo but they both could tell it wasn’t going to be ready in time. The Captain had a moment to warn the crew to brace for impact and then it was too late: the remaining pods fell upon the ship’s forward section, detonating themselves by the dozen, stripping away the last of the shields, and raining debris on the unprotected hull.

~

“Seven? Can you hear me?”

A warm hand on her shoulder. Warmer than human. Warmer than Klingon. Much warmer than Vulcan. The Doctor. Seven opened her eyes and found it difficult to focus.

“What happened?” she asked.

“The ceiling fell on you,” the Doctor said, matter-of-factly. “I’ve given you something for the pain.”

“Is this ‘something for the pain’ the reason I feel numb?” To his nod, she said, “Then please purge it from my system. I cannot perform my duties properly if I cannot feel my fingers.”

“Absolutely not! I’m ordering you to your alcove for a full regeneration cycle. Voyager survived two hours without you; it’ll survive another six.”

Seven propped herself up on her elbows, and frowned. “I was unconscious for two hours.”

“Two and a half. Go and regenerate; that’s an order.”

“You heard the man, Seven,” Janeway said, emerging from under the tactical console, repair kit in hand and bio-neural gel smeared on her uniform. Ruined gel packs surrounded every bridge station. “You’re more use to me alert and rested.”

“May I ask when you last slept, Captain?” Seven said.

“I was out cold for eight minutes until the Doctor got here, and that’ll have to do me until tomorrow. Seven: regenerate! Now!”

Seven sighed, and stood. Immediately her leg -- she hadn’t even noticed, but her calf muscle was particularly numb and packed with a soft green substance -- started to shake and had the Doctor not caught her she would have fallen. She glared at him.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

“I can _walk_.”

“I’m sure you can. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to accompany you to the cargo bay, if it’s alright with the Captain.” To Janeway’s nod, he said, “Very well, then.”

There really was no getting away from him. Seven consented and allowed herself to be escorted to the turbolift.

~

By the time they reached deck eight, Seven had resentfully pushed the Doctor away and was walking as purposefully as she could manage towards her cargo bay, the Doctor in worried pursuit.

“You shouldn’t push yourself like this! You suffered severe trauma and you simply must take more _care!_ ”

“I intend to take care, Doctor: I intend to regenerate.”

The Doctor scowled. “You know what I mean.”

“Perhaps.” Seven’s lip twitched. She opened the doors to Cargo Bay 2 and then grimaced as her step faltered. When the Doctor ran forward to assist her she held out a hand. “Please. A stumble is not a fall.”

Ignoring the Doctor’s protests, Seven climbed into her alcove, suppressing a wince whenever she had to put weight on her injured leg, and settled into position.

“See you in six hours.”

“Enjoy your regeneration. If you need me, just make a sort of stoic grunt over the comlink: I’ll probably be tending to another member of this unaccountably stubborn crew, who will undoubtedly be _delighted_ to send me away so they can continue suffering in heroic silence.”

Seven closed her eyes. “Thank you for your assistance,” she said.

~

_It is absolutely the case. It is absolutely the case. It is absolutely the case._

Seven didn’t dream. In the collective, a drone’s sleeping intellect would complete tasks related to running or maintaining the ship or structure in which they lived, but lacking access to the hive mind, Seven’s unconscious sought quiet satisfaction in the search for perfection.

She definitely didn’t dream.

_It is absolutely the case. It is--_

The alcove went dead, wrenching Seven from regeneration groggy and uncoordinated. What was happening?

“Warning.” It was the ship’s computer. “Compartment decompression in fifty seven seconds.”

The hull must have been critically weakened during the last attack, Seven realised. She dropped from her alcove, still exhausted, and landed on all fours on the deck. She needed to concentrate but she was seeing colours she knew couldn’t be real. Her left leg felt useless. No matter: she had one good leg and zero desire to be in the cargo bay in fifty two seconds.

She pushed upwards, ignoring the pain as an irrelevance. It didn’t matter that every step was agony. It didn’t matter that she was almost _crawling_ towards an exit that seemed to be kilometres away with a little over forty seconds to go until the entire bay decompressed. It didn’t _matter_ that when she was first stranded aboard this pitiful ship that _Doctor_ ripped all the Borg hardware he could find from her unconscious spine. It didn’t matter that not so long ago she could have ignored the injury and the pain and continue with her work until such time as repair was convenient and appropriate.

Nothing mattered, because she was six metres from the door and eighteen seconds from death and on her knees.

The deck swam in front of her eyes. She tasted copper.

She forced herself back up onto her good leg.

“Computer,” she said through gritted teeth, “erect a level 2 force field around the damaged hull area.”

“Insufficient power to generate a stable force field,” the computer said.

Eleven seconds. “Computer: initiate site-to-site transport. Destination: corridor, deck 8.”

“Site to site transport unavailable.”

Seven almost screamed in frustration.

“Seven of Nine to any crew member,” she spat. “Emergency assistance required. Cargo bay 2 is seconds from decompression. Seven of Nine to any--”

She was interrupted by the glow of a transporter beam, and looked up to see the interior of a shuttle and a concerned face ripple into view.

“Torres.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” Torres said.

Seven was grateful enough that the indignity of collapsing to the shuttle’s floor didn’t seem all that bad.

~

The hypospray woke her. Just once today, Seven reflected, she’d like to wake of her _own_ volition. She opened her eyes to see who it was this time.

“Mr Paris,” she said, a little more coldly than she intended. “The last time I saw you, you were unconscious.”

Paris looked hurt. “Look who's talking.”

Seven rolled her eyes. “I did not mean offense. You are undamaged?”

“Yeah. Doc pulled me out of the wreckage of the navigation console and filled me with enough drugs I won’t sleep for a month. Shame we can’t say the same for you.”

Seven frowned. “I did not _intend_ to sleep.”

“I didn’t mean sleep. You’re _not_ ‘undamaged’. You’re looking at two to three days for your calf muscle to repair itself, and that’s _with_ the help of Doc’s magic medicine.”

“There’s nothing magic about it, Lieutenant,” the Doctor said, rounding the corner from the surgery bay. “It’s just a topical antiseptic. Made from plants. Grown in Neelix’s ‘garden’. Which you’d know, if you paid attention.”

Paris ignored him. “Cargo bay 2 decompressed just a few seconds after B’Elanna pulled you out of there. You’re lucky she was in a shuttle already.”

“Please pass on my gratitude to Lieutenant Torres. I assume she was surveying the exterior of the ship?”

“Yeah, we got hit bad. Decompression in eight compartments, we’re down to one nacelle for now, and a big chunk of debris hit the deflector. Right now we couldn’t go to warp if we wanted to.”

Seven sat up. “You will require my assistance with repairs.”

“No, we don’t. You’re resting. Doctor’s orders.” Tom put a finger to her collarbone and tried to push her back down again. Seven resisted, and glared at the Doctor, who gave her a tight little smile, put a finger next to Paris’ and gently but firmly pushed her down.

“Two days of bed rest,” he said. “Or mess hall rest, if you prefer. But I’m afraid you can’t go back to your alcove, unless your Borg physiology allows you to hold your breath for six hours.”

“Not anymore,” Seven said, and sighed, and held up her hands in defeat. “I consent. Two days.”

“I’ll bring you a book,” Paris said.

“I do not require entertainment.”

~

How do they do it? How do humans sleep? How do they put aside all the problems they have to solve, forget the tasks that have gone undone, close their eyes, and dream?

Seven, in the dark, stared at the ceiling of sick bay. She’d lived among humans for over a year and somehow she’d neglected to ask: how do you sleep?

She closed her eyes and tried again.

~

“You’re not sleeping, are you? I can tell. You can’t just lie still with your eyes closed and make me _think_ you’re sleeping so you can avoid having this conversation with me. A tip: snore.”

Seven opened her eyes and pinned the Doctor with an irritated glare. “I wasn’t ignoring you. I was attempting to sleep. I have had no success. Perhaps, if sleep is so important to my recovery, you could drug me?”

“And miss these fascinating conversations? Seven, I wouldn’t dream of it. Besides, the muscle has to rebuild. If you were a normal human I could turn you off like a light and do the surgery myself, but your Borg physiology is… pushy. If I put you under artificially there might be side-effects.”

“Side-effects.”

“It’s unlikely, but given how stretched we are for resources _and_ competent crew I don’t want to risk making you worse before you get better and neither, I fancy, does the Captain. Shall I ask Neelix to make you a hot chocolate?”

“What will that do?”

“Help you sleep, if Ensign Kim is to be believed.”

“It is fine. I will go to him myself. I do not wish to keep you from your duties.”

“Very well.” The Doctor disappeared into his office area. “I’ll get you a crutch. It’s a--”

“I know what a crutch is. At one point we had over three thousand.”

“One of Neelix’s less successful trading ventures, if memory serves.”

“I was under the impression the Captain had them all recycled.”

“Yes, well, I saved a few, for occasions such as this.” He returned with the crutch and held out a hand. “Up you get.”

Seven didn’t take his arm and instead took the crutch, putting her weight on it and standing up.

“Tell me, Seven,” the Doctor said. “Is it _efficient_ to always refuse offers of assistance?”

“It is _efficient_ to maintain my independence, so that other members of the crew may carry out their duties unencumbered by a helpless drone,” Seven said flatly.

The Doctor made a show of looking around at the otherwise empty sick bay. “You _are_ my duty, now, Seven. I discharged my only other patient three hours ago.”

“Crewman Anderson, who came in with plasma burns. I don’t recall you offering her your arm.”

“Because she was capable of walking unaided!”

Seven rounded on the Doctor. “ _I. Am. Fine._ I will walk to the mess hall _by myself_ and if I return here it will be when I choose and _how_ I choose.”

To Seven’s relief, the Doctor gave up, wordlessly stepping aside and waiting for her to leave. She shifted her weight again, tested the crutch, and left the sick bay step by step by step.

~

She had contemplated avoiding the mess hall altogether, had gone as far as to query the computer for any currently unoccupied quarters -- and seriously considered using a bed in one of the shuttles when the answer came back _zero_ \-- but decided it was better to comply with the Doctor’s instructions. He had a way of persuading most crew members, even the Captain, and was so insistent and persistent that resistance was usually futile.

The lights were on in the mess hall, and she could see the Talaxian busy in his kitchen.

“Neelix.”

“Ah, Seven! How are you? How’s the leg? Walking okay?”

“I have one of your mobility aids.”

“One of my--? Oh, yes, now I remember. They claimed it was a shipment of Gravorian cabbages but when we opened it found nothing but crutches. Honestly, I think it was for the best: I had the opportunity to sample a Gravorian cabbage a couple of months ago and it took a week for the swelling to go down.”

“And yet you continued to work.”

“Well, seeing as I wasn’t able to leave the kitchen I didn’t really have much choice. Is that why you’re here at this time of night? You can’t work?”

“I have been ordered to sleep, but I am unused to resting without the aid of my alcove and I am finding it… difficult. The Doctor suggested you, and hot chocolate.”

Seven visibly wobbled on her crutch as she finished talking and Neelix, emerging from the kitchen alcove, ran forward to steady her. He stopped when she steadied herself and fixed him with a glare.

“I do not require assistance,” she said.

“Of course you don’t!” he said, backing off and returning to the kitchen. “Now, hot chocolate, was it?”

Seven took advantage of Neelix turning away to collapse into the nearest chair. Even with the mobility aid, simply standing still was alarmingly tiring.

“I’m afraid,” said Neelix, who was rummaging in cupboards, “that we don’t have any hot chocolate, or anything that could be said to be _almost_ hot chocolate. But! I have a solution: Bolian broth!”

Seven blinked. “Bolian broth. There are billions of Bolians, and their culture has a rich culinary tradition. I find it hard to believe they invented only one dish that could be described as ‘Bolian broth’.”

“That’s what it was called in the database.” Neelix leaned on the counter and raised his eyebrows at her. “Probably because, of all the broths the Bolians could be credited with creating,” and here he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “this is the only one that’s _blue!_ ”

Seven stared back, impassive. “Very well. I will try your Bolian broth.”

“Excellent! Coming right up. Just let me warm up the beans and dice some yambaba!”

Seven, not really listening to the conversation the little man was apparently quite capable of keeping up even when the only other participant was silent, watched him work in the low light of the mess hall. She found her Borg senses returning random data to her conscious self: Talaxian, species 218; red blood; Neelix stirred the contents of the pot on his left nineteen times but the bowl on right only eight; of the forty eight lights installed in the main mess hall nine were currently nonfunctional; the quickest way to disable a Talaxian is--

Seven slept.

~

Seven woke to find that someone had arranged her arms on the table such that her head was resting on them. It was surprisingly comfortable. But then she sat upright and found her spine and shoulders protesting; accessing an unexpected instinct, she stretched.

“Rise and shine.”

The voice was the Captain’s, and had a smile in it. Seven ignored the obvious idiom and looked up to see Janeway sat opposite her, grinning and drinking from a large mug.

“I slept,” Seven said.

“For three and a half hours. That’s not bad for a first try.”

“Neelix was preparing some Bolian broth. Evidently it was not necessary.”

“Not necessary and not edible,” Janeway said. “It sat at the next table for ninety minutes and congealed into three rock-hard lumps of a composition I can only guess at. How are you feeling?”

“If you are referring to my leg, then it is not yet fully functional. My implants report only twenty two percent of the muscle has been repaired.”

“I’m referring to _you_ , Seven. All of you.”

Seven raised an eyebrow. “I am fine. I am ready to return to duty.”

“Stand up without your crutch and tell me that again.”

Seven shifted her weight to her elbows and started to push herself off the table but Janeway put a hand on her forearm. “Don’t,” she said. “Get some more rest. Try to relax!”

“I am… not good at relaxing.”

Janeway fixed her with an analytical eye. “Fine,” she said, eventually. “Stay in the mess hall until B’Elanna’s briefing in two hours and then if you feel up to it you can go to Astrometrics and try to find us somewhere we can mine. Once we make our initial repairs we’re going to need raw material, and lots of it.” She stood, and walked around the table to put her hand on Seven’s shoulder. “But your primary responsibility is to get well.”

On an impulse, Seven covered the Captain’s hand with her own. “Understood,” she said, hesitantly.


End file.
